Patent EP0905959A2 successfully refreshed from Google Patents.
EP0905959A2
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A packet-switched-network telephone system
Assignee: Xura Inc
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Filing: 1998-07-31
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2018-07-31
Abstract
Abstract A telephone system is disclosed establishing a link over a packet-switched-network (16), such as the Internet, between two telephone interfaces (10,20) by exchanging network addresses. The addresses can include ATM addresses to allow a virtual connection to be established between the interfaces. The interfaces exchange speech data packets of speech signals from a called party telephone and a calling party telephone over the network. An interface converts the speech signals of the parties into the speech data packets. The system dynamically allocates network and interface resources to complete the telephone call transaction. The system provides a number of enhanced calling services not normally available to PSTN subscribers including: message-delivery, call-back, call-screening, network-camp-on, call-back-from-queue, find-me, meet-me-pager, call-forwarding, call-interrupt, call-waiting, business-dialing, automatic-call-distribution, virtual-automatic-call-distribution, speed-dial, call-transfer, conference-calling and network-administration. Echo cancellation is used to eliminate echoes caused by PSTN circuits associated with the telephones. Silence detection is used to improve network efficiency by not sending packets when the parties are not speaking. The delay in the packet-switched-network is used to adjust the size of sound segments formed into a packet. The interfaces allow the system to provide end points in a packet-switched network that manage a telephone call over the packet switched network.
Inventors
- 👤 Donald F. Picard
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-10-26 14:46
CPC Classifications
H; H04; H04M; H04M3/00; H04M3/42; H04M3/42127; H04L; H04L12/00; H04L12/64; H04L12/6418; H04M7/00; H04M7/12; H04M7/1205; H04M7/1245; H04L12/54; H04L12/56; H04L12/5601; H04L2012/5614; H04L2012/5616; H04L2012/5629; H04L2012/563; H04L2012/5638; H04L2012/5646; H04L2012/5652; H04L2012/5671; H04L2012/6443; H04L2012/6472; H04L2012/6475; H04L2012/6486; H04L2012/6491; H04M2203/00; H04M2203/50; H04M2203/5018; H04M2242/00; H04M2242/22; H04M3/002; H04M3/42025; H04M3/42034; H04M3/42042; H04M3/42059; H04M3/48; H04M3/50; H04M3/51; H04M3/523; H04M3/56; H04M7/009; H04Q; H04Q3/00; H04Q3/72
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 28
Claim 1
Independent Claim
64 words
A telephone system, comprising: first and second
telephones; a packet-switched-network; and first and second interface conversion units coupled to
said packet-switched-network and respectively to said first
and second telephones, said units exchanging speech data
packets over said network and converting packets into
speech signals and speech signals into packets and
dynamically allocating resources of said packet-switched-network
as needed to complete a telephone call transaction.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
25 words
A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the resources
of said first and second interface conversion units are
dynamically allocated to complete said transaction.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
27 words
A system as recited in claim 1 or 2, wherein said
first and second interface conversion units exchange
network addresses used for exchanging the speech data
packets.
Claim 4
Independent Claim
30 words
A system as recited in any of the preceding claims,
wherein said first interface conversion unit determines a
network address of said second interface conversion unit
using a telephone number.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
35 words
A system as recited in claim 4, wherein said first
interface conversion unit transmits a packet switched
message to a said second interface conversion unit
including a network address of said first interface
conversion unit.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
39 words
A system as recited in claim 5, wherein
said second interface conversion unit replies to said
request with an asynchronous transfer mode network address
and said first and second interface conversion units
establish a virtual connection over said packet-switched-network.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
60 words
A telephone system, comprising: first and second telephones; a packet-switched-network; and first and second interface conversion units
coupled to said packet-switched-network and respectively to
said first and second telephones, said units exchanging
speech data packets over said network, converting packets
into speech signals and speech signals into packets, and
compressing the speech signals prior to conversion into
speech data packets.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
75 words
A telephone system, comprising: first and second telephones; a packet-switched-network; and first and second interface conversion units
coupled to said packet-switched-network and respectively to
said first and second telephones, said units exchanging
speech data packets over said network and converting packets
into speech signals and speech signals into packets and
providing enhanced calling services including one of:
message-delivery, call-back, call-screening, network-camp-on,
call-back-from-queue, find-me, meet-me-pager, call-forwarding,
call-interrupt, call-waiting, business-dialing,
automatic-call-distribution, virtual-automatic-call-distribution,
speed-dial, call-transfer, conference-calling
and network-administration.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
57 words
A telephone system, comprising: a telephone; a packet-switched-network; and an interface conversion unit coupled to said
packet-switched-network and to said telephone, said unit
converting speech signals from said telephone into speech
data packets, transmitting the speech data packets over said
network and converting received speech packets received over
said network into speech signals supplied to said telephone.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
306 words
A telephone system, comprising: a switched telephone network; first and second telephones connected to said
switched telephone network; a packet-switched-network; a first interface conversion unit coupled to
said packet-switched-network and to said first telephone,
said first unit exchanging speech data packets with said
packet-switched-network and converting data packets into
speech signals and speech signals into data packets, said
first unit comprising: a first digital switching system coupled
to said switched telephone network and routing a telephone
call from said first telephone; a first application processing unit
coupled to said digital switching system, receiving the
routed telephone call, interfacing with a caller to identify
a called telephone number, determining a packet switched
called address associated with the called telephone number,
and converting speech signals to and from speech data; and a first network processing unit coupled
to said packet-switched-network and said first application
processing unit, converting the speech data into data
packets, transmitting the data packets to the address,
converting received data packets into speech data provided
to said first application processing unit; and a second interface conversion unit coupled to
said packet-switched-network and to said second telephone,
said second unit exchanging speech data packets with said
packet-switched-network and converting data packets into
speech signals and speech signals into data packets, said
first unit comprising: a second digital switching system coupled
to said switched telephone network and routing a telephone
call to said second telephone; a second application processing unit
coupled to said digital switching system, calling the called
telephone number and converting speech signals to and from
speech data; and a second network processing unit coupled
to said packet-switched-network and said second application
processing unit, converting the speech data into data
packets, transmitting the data packets to the first network
processing unit, converting received data packets into
speech data provided to said second application processing
unit.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
71 words
A telephone system, comprising: first and second telephones; a packet-switched-network; and first and second interface conversion units
coupled to said packet-switched-network and respectively to
said first and second telephones, said units dynamically
allocating resources of said packet-switched network as
needed to complete a telephone call transaction, exchanging
speech data packets over said network, converting packets
into speech signals and speech signals into packets and
performing echo cancellation associated with the conversion.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
79 words
A telephone system, comprising: first and second telephones; a packet-switched-network; and first and second interface conversion units
coupled to said packet-switched-network and respectively to
said first and second telephones, said units exchanging
speech data packets over said network, converting packets
into speech signals and speech signals into packets and
performing echo cancellation associated with the conversion,
said conversion units comprising a speech signal silence
detector and the converting of speech signals into packets
is responsive to said silence detector.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
59 words
A telephone call method, comprising: dynamically allocating packet-switched network
resources as needed to complete a telephone call
transaction; converting speech signals from a calling
telephone into calling party speech data packets; transmitting the calling party speech data
packets to a called party destination using the packet-switched-network;
and converting the calling party speech data packets into
called party speech signals.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
19 words
A method as recited in claim 13, further comprising
providing the called party speech signals to a called
telephone.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim
21 words
A method as recited in claim 13 or 14, further
comprising exchanging packet-switched-network addresses
associated with the caller and called telephones.
Claim 16
Independent Claim
20 words
A method as recited in any of claims 13 to 15, further
comprising establishing a virtual circuit over the packet-switched-network.
Claim 17
Dependent Claim
56 words
A telephone call method, comprising: converting speech
signals from a calling telephone into calling party speech
data packets when the speech signals are above a speech
signal threshold; transmitting the calling party speech
data packets to a called party destination using a packet-switched-network;
and converting the calling party speech
data packets into called party speech signals.
Claim 18
Dependent Claim
64 words
A telephone call method, comprising: converting speech
signals from a calling telephone into calling party speech
data packets; transmitting the calling party speech data
packets to a called party destination using a packet-switched-network; converting the calling party speech data
packets into called party speech signals; and determining a network delay and adjusting a
sound segment size of the data packets responsive to the
delay.
Claim 19
Dependent Claim
15 words
A method as recited in claim 18, wherein
the size comprises 1.5 times the delay.
Claim 20
Dependent Claim
44 words
A telephone system, comprising: first and second telephones; a packet-switched-network; and first and second end points coupled to said
packet-switched-network and respectively to said first and
second telephones, said end points managing a telephone call
between said first and second telephones over said network.
Claim 21
Dependent Claim
40 words
A telephone system as recited in claim
20, wherein said end points comprise means for providing
enhanced calling services including one of: message-delivery,
call-back, call-screening, network-camp-on, call-back-from-queue,
find-me, meet-me-pager, call-forwarding,
call-interrupt, call-waiting, business-dialing, automatic-call-distribution,
virtual-automatic-call-distribution,
speed-dial, call-transfer, conference-calling and network-administration.
Claim 22
Dependent Claim
19 words
A telephone call method, comprising: managing a telephone call over a packet-switched
network between source and destination end points.
Claim 23
Dependent Claim
35 words
A method as recited in claim 22, wherein said managing
provides enhanced calling services including one of:
message-delivery, call-back, call-screening,
network-camp-on, call-back-from-queue, find-me, meet-me-pager,
call-forwarding, call-interrupt, call-waiting,
business-dialing, automatic-call-distribution, virtual-automatic-call-distribution,
speed-dial, call-transfer,
conference-calling and network-administration.
Claim 24
Dependent Claim
38 words
A method as recited in claim 22 or 23, wherein said
managing comprises: initiating a packet-switched packet communication
between the end points; and performing packet communication between the end points
to establish a call between the end points.
Claim 25
Independent Claim
42 words
A method as recited in any of claims 22 to 24, wherein
said managing comprises: initiating a packet-switched packet communication
between the end points; and performing packet communication between the end points
to establish an enhanced telephone service between the end
points.
Claim 26
Independent Claim
27 words
A method as recited in any of claims 22 to 25, wherein
said managing comprises dynamically allocating network
resources as needed to complete a telephone call
transaction.
Claim 27
Independent Claim
28 words
A method as recited in any of claims 22 to 26, wherein
said managing comprises dynamically allocating end point
resources as needed to complete a telephone call
transaction.
Claim 28
Dependent Claim
66 words
A telephone system, comprising: first and second telephones; a network; and first and second interface conversion units
coupled to said network and respectively to said first and
second telephones, said units exchanging speech data packets
over said network, converting packets into speech signals
and speech signals into packets, and dynamically allocating
resources of said network and said units as needed to
complete a telephone call transaction.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
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